Red Poppies
by Sora Tsuiki
Summary: Carter Flanders promised her mom to take care of her brother. When this lead to war, she followed. When this lead to death, she followed. However, when this lead to Soul Society, it wasn't possible. "Flanders never forget, sir. I'll prove you wrong," Carter says, staring into the shinigami's teal eyes before disappearing into the sky as a black butterfly. OCxHitsugaya


**Sorry for not updating ****_Contracted_****, but it turns out I'm having issues again with the fight scene. I'll try to pump it out soon though, since I owe my Naruto followers another update!**

**However, this fic is a BLEACH fic because I was watching it yesterday night and read a few other stories and got a tad addicted... lol. I'm pretty sure this one won't get updated too regularly, and it'll probably be more of a side project that will take up my writer's block time with my other story. I'm not much for OC's, but I just had to do it, sorry for my muse :( Please enjoy! and tell me what you all think (if u want it continued or not).**

**was inspired by veterans day, since its quite a big deal in my family. I love them, thank you for protecting our country.**

****Don't own BLEACH****

Thrumming guns pulsating with death in their users' hands, swooping bullets biting through the air, tearing flesh spilling crimson life-fluid into the already saturated ground: this is a battlefield. The sparse flora had been dug up and undermined with the making of trenches, trenches that litter the both sides of the Warfield.

Several bodies already lay in the clutches of death, her sweet caress slowly stealing their conscience and their heat and their last seconds of life. Faces are stashed in the mud pitifully and bodies are strewn sporadically across the landscape. They will need a proper send-off, one that isn't as dishonorable as corpses decaying on the cursed field. These heroes deserved prayers and tears.

However, tears shed for comrades can wait. With an inaudible scream, a group of soldiers charge from one end of the field, guns blaring in their hands. This isn't the first line, nor is it the second nor third. Their fellow soldiers had already fallen while attempting to gain the same ground they are going after now, and they know. And they know that if they don't try, no one else will. With family and honor on their mind, they know the consequences of their actions.

Through the throttle of several gun bursts from the enemy, the first in their line falls; bullet ripped through the side of his throat. The others don't falter, they couldn't. They continue with a silent promise to fulfill what the fallen can't and push on, making the necessary ground. They all jump down into the enemy's first line of trenches; they had been abandoned after forces gassed them out with smoke grenades.

The soldier who had been felled by the bullet is a boy on the precipice of boyhood. His still-bright eyes shining with corrupted innocence and loss of youth, they hold longing and a determination only a soldier can have.

Blood dribbles out the corner of his mouth. He doesn't even realize he's choking on it. His hand clenches in the soft dirt beneath his fingers, and his other reaches on top his head and un-straps his helmet. It falls neatly to the side and off his scalp. His face is bared to the clean sky above him, untouched by the impurity on the earth. Unblinkingly, he just stares.

B_R_E_A_K

Trudging through the bloodied ground, a girl with windswept hair searches for a face. Her steps are silent, muffled from the world. Even if they could be heard, the noise of war and bloodshed around her would surely drown them out. The noise that she had become so accustom to in her last year of life.

Bullets of lead propel from every angle and slice the air just as efficiently as they do flesh.

One bullet, straying from its intended mark, flies unexpectedly towards her, not that one can expect anything in war and stay safe. Yet, the girl doesn't flinch. The metal fazes through her. No blooming flower of crimson on her forehead, not even a shifting of hair results from the passing projectile. In reaction, she hikes an aviator's helmet higher on her hip, oxygen tube swinging uselessly towards the ground. The hand not holding it moves upwards to scratch the area the bullet passed through, leathered finger attempting to relieve a phantom itch.

Etched onto her face is a frown of constant worry and her eyes continue probing the place. Then her eyes find him. Surrounded by brown and red, sun-stripped hair swathed with dirt catches her attention. It is the same hair color they share with their mother.

"Jake!"

Her helmet drops to the ground silently. She doesn't notice how it disintegrates into the air.

Her booted feet stomp their way to the dying boy's side, a boy hardly a year older than her. A brother hardly a year older than her.

But before she can make it, he sits up and glances around. His eyes meet hers, happy, then frustrated, then enraged. His brown eyes furrow and he opens his mouth to scream at her. He then looks startled and shuts his mouth. A hand to his neck, and he doesn't feel any tear in his neck.

She is now kneeling next to him. "Jake, say something. You can say anything."

Jake's gaze is confused, his mouth opens and closes before noticing his sister isn't looking at him like he thought. Instead she is looking at…he twists to glance at the spot she focused her attention on. Instead she is looking at him, a half-decapitated him staring lifelessly at the sky with tears still streaming down his face.

He chokes before screaming, "What _is_ this, Carter!?" He scrambles away from "himself," a loud clinking following his move. He looks down to see a chain attached to his chest as well. Jake looks up to see a similar one in his sister's, though hers was obviously shorter. Eyes harden with thought. "What is going on?" he demands, looking at her evenly. Bullets scorch and grenades boom behind the pair, not that it mattered anymore.

Carter smiles lightly at that; Jake was always the level-headed one.

"We're dead bro. Dead as a doornail." And she was always the blunt one. His skeptical look was killed as another soldier runs straight through his sister's body. Her crooked smile goes sadly to her face, "Not kidding here, Jake."

He frowns. "Why are you here then, shouldn't you have…passed over or something?"

"Mom told me to keep you out of trouble. I couldn't keep that promise in life, but I'll sure as hell keep it in death." Carter's face is hard and unyielding. She lifts her hand to him, and he takes it. With a quick glimpse at his, or what he presumed as his, body, Jake takes the leather clad hand and stands with her. He isn't smiling, but a frown isn't exactly present either.

"I can't just leave them all here alone, Carter, they're my comrades. I've fought with them, cried with them, and even died," he chuckles lightly at that despite his sister glare, "with them. I'm staying until the war ends." Words hard as steel and with eyes to match.

Carter opens her mouth to say something, but before any words escape, she's pushed to the ground by Jake.

His brown eyes are focused behind her, and he grits out, "Who are you?"

B_R_E_A_K

Battlefields are always rife with hollows within a day's time. Succulent souls and pulse, ripe for the taking, wander in groves, confused and angry at everything and nothing. That is why only taicho and fukutaicho are sent to clean up the souls of war, or so the soutaicho told him.

With a sigh, the shinigami runs a hand through his hair. His white haori flips in nonexistent winds.

He slowly moves across the deadened field performing konso after konso, sending each pained soul to mercifully amnesiac, second life. No hollows had quite tumbled into the vicinity yet, and the taicho didn't know whether to call it a blessing or a curse due to the boredom. The other captains assured him that arriving early would indeed result in few battles, which is exactly why Zaraki-taicho advised him to be perfectly late. For a second, he actually wishes he had listened to the crazed captain.

But then he thinks better of it.

He gazes at the poor soul he's currently guiding onto the next life, the pitifully confused eyes as they stare at the separated body. Human's always end their lives pathetically early for such trivial causes, in his aged eyes. Humans. Despite being the physical embodiment of life, they cared for it so little. To him, life is something he can now only dream of. Being dead for a decade or two does that to a Soul Reaper, and he has been dead for more than only two measly decades.

"May you find peace," he whispers to the wind as the soul and his grubby uniform disappears. And he continues on his way.

He spots two souls, standing in the middle of the fray. Neither looking at him, nor the conflict around them. With a sigh, he resigns himself to another two soul burials.

Unsheathing his sword, the shinigami captain lifts his hand so that the pommel is forehead height. However, before konso is performed, the boy of the pair widens his eyes.

With a tackle, he and what looks like his sister tumble to the ground. The boy growls, "Who are you?"

The shinigami captain only furrows his brow in irritation as he lowers his zanpakuto. _Stupidly protective brothers…_

"I'm Hitsugaya Toshiro, shinigami captain of the Tenth Division," he answers coolly, leveling a glare at the souls rummaging in the dirt. "I'm here to send you off to the next life."

With a rustle, the male soul is pushed to the side and a wide-eyed blonde bolts up to stare at him. Her hair is whipped around her face in a sunny halo and pale green eyes are set hopefully in her face. The military green one-piece she wore blazons her part in the battle, yet Hitsugaya marvels at the innocence still present.

"So we'll go together?" she asks, voice lower than he expects.

Scanning the field for threats, the captain makes sure there are no more pressing matters to worry about. "Well…" he begins, "Not necessarily. When you're reborn in the Rukongai you forget everything about your past life. And it's not guaranteed that you'll appear in the same district." His bored tone drones on through the battlefield.

Both siblings' eyes harden.

"I refuse." It is the boy who spoke again, standing tall and towering above the snowy-haired soul reaper. "Together or never, midget."

Hitsugaya's eye twitches. "Yeah well, you don't exactly have a choice, unless you want to be Hollow fodder. Or in her case," he points to the girl still on the ground, "a Hollow yourself." The two look confused, and the captain capitalizes. Swiftly, he smacks the butt end of his sword in the freakishly large, in his opinion at least, boy standing in front of him. The blond disappears into sky as a black butterfly.

"Jake!"

"May you find peace as well, girl," Hitsugaya murmurs, only feeling slightly bad about his actions. Her anguished cry is lost in the battle's clamor, just as it would be lost in her transversal into Soul Society. "Don't worry, you'll forget this pain in only a second. I'm sorry, but it is for both of your protection."

Scuttling to her feet and standing at a full five foot four inches, the sister only glared at the shinigami. "Flanders never forget, sir. I'll prove you wrong."

Her words echo in his mind as Hitsugaya sends her off, green eyes glowing with determined intensity.

**We are the Dead. Short days ago  
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,  
Loved and were loved, and now we lie  
In Flanders fields.  
-John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields"**


End file.
